New SBS install, same domain name

T

twwabw

Gawd
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Apr 21, 2001
Messages
716
Here's the scenario- client site has existing SBS2003 install. Server is a mess. Others have worked on it over the years that had no clue what they were doing; the hardware is nearing 5 years old- time to replace anyway.

We're setting up a new SBS2011 server, from scratch. The existing AD and server is such a mess, I don't even want to think about migration. There aren't that many users (10) so our plan is to simply backup all email to pst; unjoin all PCs from the existing domain, shut down. Introduce new preconfigured server; recreate matching user accounts, mail, etc.; join all PCs to new domain; import mail. Done.

But, catch is they want to use same internal domain name, ie: abc.local . I know that sounds strange, but due to the name of their company, there really aren't any other acronyms, etc. we could easily choose.

It would seem to me, that since this is a new domain; new SIDs; new everything- it shoudn't matter- but not 100% sure.

Thoughts?
 
your domain could be 123.abc. There's no benefit to one domain name over the other except easier to type. Explain that to them. They should never even see the domain name anyways, except at the log on screen. There's no reason to make your job harder than it has to for no reason. But no, I see no reason why you can't reuse the old domain name if you want to. Nothing domain specific should be on the users computer, other than possible username.domain user accounts. You may need to back up their local data and wipe the user accounts out. This would be an excellent time to do fresh installs of their desktops too.
 
bigdogchris said:
your domain could be 123.abc. There's no benefit to one domain name over the other except easier to type. Explain that to them. They should never even see the domain name anyways, except at the log on screen. There's no reason to make your job harder than it has to for no reason. But no, I see no reason why you can't reuse the old domain name if you want to. Nothing domain specific should be on the users computer, other than possible username.domain user accounts. You may need to back up their local data and wipe the user accounts out. This would be an excellent time to do fresh installs of their desktops too.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply... yes, I realize there's no benefit, but for many lengthy reasons, they would prefer to keep it, and I understand their reasoning. I just want to be sure there are no issues- I can't imagine what they would be, considering SID change, but hey....

Fresh install on PCs? LOL- they would never pay for that labor charge- this one is traumatic enough. Would be nice, but no chance.
 
Yeh, with the new domain, the users will get new profiles even with the same username (username.domain instead of username)
Youll have to log on as the 'new user', get the 'new profile', then reboot, log on as an admin and change the registry entry for the 'new' profile to point to the 'old' profile folder. (delete the old reg entry of course)
Then set the permissions on the old user profile folder for the new user.

(Dont ask me how I know this..but did you know you can delete OU's from the GPO console)
 
As long as you remove all of the workstations from the old domain prior to removing the old server, I don't see why this wouldn't work. Install new server, add workstations to new domain. They should connect to it no problem.
 
hawk82 said:
As long as you remove all of the workstations from the old domain prior to removing the old server, I don't see why this wouldn't work. Install new server, add workstations to new domain. They should connect to it no problem.
Click to expand...

Yea you can join them to a new domain named the same thing without problem. Just flush the dns on them via the command line(ipconfig /flushdns) and make sure they are connecting to the new server when you join them back to the domain.
 
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